In arid areas of the world water is becoming one of the most precious natural resources. Meeting future water needs in these arid areas may require aggressive conservation measures. This in turn requires irrigation systems that apply water to the landscape based on the water requirements of the plants. Many irrigation controllers have been developed for automatically controlling application of water to landscapes. Known irrigation controllers range from simple devices that control watering times based upon fixed schedules, to sophisticated devices that vary the watering schedules according to local geography and climatic conditions.
With respect to the simpler types of irrigation controllers, a homeowner typically sets a watering schedule that involves specific run times and days for each of a plurality of stations, and the controller executes the same schedule regardless of the season or weather conditions. From time to time the homeowner may manually adjust the watering schedule, but such adjustments are usually only made a few times during the year, and are based upon the homeowner's perceptions rather than the actual watering needs. One change is often made in the late spring when a portion of the yard becomes brown due to a lack of water. Another change is often made in the late fall when the homeowner assumes that the vegetation does not require as much watering. These changes to the watering schedule are typically insufficient to achieve efficient watering.
More sophisticated irrigation controllers usually include some mechanism for automatically making adjustments to the irrigation run times to account for daily environmental variations. However, due to the complexity of these irrigation controllers, the homeowner, after the irrigation controller is initially installed, makes few if any changes to the irrigation controller settings and may not even check if the irrigation controller is operating properly unless the landscape plant material begins browning and/or dying.
Additionally, since these irrigation controllers automatically operate the irrigation system the homeowner makes no preparation for someone to check the system when they are absent from their residence for an extended period of time, such as on a vacation. The irrigation controller is just a machine and for any number of reasons the irrigation controller may not continue to operate correctly, such as if the electricity to the residence is temporarily turned off.
Because of user disinterest and/or lack of knowledge in the operation of present automatic irrigation systems, there exists a need for a cost-effective method to assist the irrigation user in the attaining of more efficient irrigation of the landscape and in the regular monitoring of the operation of the irrigation system.
There are irrigation systems that are entirely or partly controlled by a distal computer that is located at a remote site from the irrigation controller. One such system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,208,855, issued May 1993, to Marian, broadcasts potential evapotranspiration (ETo) values for multiple geographic zones. Irrigation controllers receive and extract appropriate data for the local conditions, and then use the extracted data to calculate run times. However, there is no regular monitoring, other than by the user, of whether the irrigation controllers actually utilized and modified the irrigation schedule based on the broadcast ETo values. Another irrigation system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,696,671, issued December 1997, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,870,302, issued February 1999, both to Oliver, uses a central computer to compute a watering factor that is sent to the irrigation site to modify the watering schedule at the site. The watering factor is partially based on information the central computer receives from the irrigation site. As with the above patent, so also with this patent, there is no monitoring of whether the irrigation controller is applying the information transmitted from the central computer in the irrigating of the landscape.
A large irrigation system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,479,339 issued December 1995 to Miller, has management personnel located remote from the irrigation site and operators located at the irrigation site. Information is transmitted from the irrigation site to management personnel so they can monitor the quantity of water that is applied at the irrigation site. Irrigation systems such as these are either to large or their cost would prohibit their use on residential sites and smaller commercial landscape sites.
In addition to the above listed problems with existing known irrigation systems, there are also no known irrigation systems that communicate with the user on how efficient their irrigation system is operating and/or provide them with information on how they can improve the efficiency in the operation of their irrigation systems.
Current computer technology allows information to be electronically transmitted between two computers. Also, computers at remote locations are being used to control some types of devices. One such system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,053,844, issued April 2000, to Clem uses a computer at a remote site to directly control a fitness device via an Internet system. The user of the fitness device can also interact on-line with a fitness expert to engage in real time two way communications.
The present invention uses a distal computer at a remote site to assist the irrigation user in attaining more efficient irrigation of the landscape and the distal computer, at the remote site, monitors the operation of the irrigation system. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention the distal computer, at the remote site, communicates with an irrigation controller at the user's site, with the user, and with a third party via the Internet system.